The announcement of the use of Starlink terminals in Mayotte gave rise to controversy in France. She also lacked details. A few days later, the conditions of use of the satellite Internet access service begin to arrive.
The contours of the use of Starlink in Mayotte are starting to become clearer. A few days after François Bayrou's announcement to use the satellite Internet access service of SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, the Politico site learned from consistent sources that some of the terminals will not be supported by the French state.
Precisely, of the 200 Starlink kits announced by the Prime Minister, and which are due to arrive in Mayotte from January 6, half will be offered by SpaceX. The rest should therefore be the responsibility of the government. That's not all: according to our colleagues, the price of the subscription for 200 terminals will be covered, for a period of 3 months.
On the Starlink website, it is indicated that the price of a kit costs 349 euros (or 180 euros in mini version), which therefore theoretically represents a cost of 34,900 (or 18,000 euros) for 100 terminals. As for the subscription, it costs 70 euros per month in Mayotte (or 35 euros in the lite version). In comparison, the price in mainland France is 40 euros per month.
According to Politico, the 100 kits made available by SpaceX are “loaned”, in reality, which suggests that they will then be recovered by the company at the end of the operation. Depending on the speed at which traditional telecom networks are restored, these terminals could be used for barely a few weeks, in any case well before 3 months.
A complementary solution to telecom networks, and a source of tension
In a progress report made at the end of December, it was reported that the island's connectivity had increased to 75% for the Orange network, and almost 70% for SFR. As for Free, it was located at 40%. But it will still take several days, if not a few weeks, to repair and resupply all the installations with electricity.
The Starlink terminal affair, however, gave rise to a controversy, launched by a senior Orange official. He denounced the executive's choice to use Starlink instead of lifting all administrative and legal obstacles which would allow operators to restore communications in Mayotte much more quickly. The lack of thanks was also deplored.
One of Starlink's strengths is being able to quickly water areas with Internet access, including hard-to-reach places, using satellites. So, inoperable land infrastructure is not a difficulty. This is practical in regions that have been hit by a natural disaster, for example.
However, Starlink terminals also need to be powered by electricity and this has been a point of discontent with Orange. Indeed, the executive expressed his fear that the generators deployed to help the population would benefit Starlink more than the installations of telecom operators.
For the population of Mayotte, these issues appear very far from their immediate concerns. The island, which was hit hard by Cyclone Chido in mid-December, has needs in almost all areas, and urgently. Beyond telecoms, there are many issues: energy, water, food, public services, security, roads, etc.
